Georgia’s unemployment rate declined to 7.4 percent in December, the state labor department announced Thursday.
The seasonally adjusted rate was down two-tenths of a percentage point from November’s 7.6 percent and a full 1.3 percentage points lower than last year’s rate of 8.7 percent.
State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler credited the drop to seasonal hiring in retail trade, transportation and warehousing.
“I’m particularly pleased that we had some 90,000 more jobs this December than last, which is the best December job growth in eight years,” said Butler.
In fact, Georgia had 4,094,100 jobs in December, an increase of 90,100, or 2.3 percent, since December 2012. Increases were seen in professional and business services, trade and transportation, leisure and hospitality, education and health services and, to a lesser degree, construction.
But while there were more jobs, there were also more layoffs. The number of new layoffs, represented by initial claims for unemployment insurance, increased sharply during this period to 65,889, about 29.5 percent higher than last year.
The labor department attributed the increase to temporary claims filed in manufacturing and seasonal claims in construction, administrative services, hotel and food services and trade and transportation.
In Savannah, about 384 more people applied for unemployment insurance benefits this December over last, for a total of 1,820 claims, roughly a 27 percent increase.
In total, about 349,946 Georgians were unemployed in December, the fewest unemployed residents since October 2008.
About 163,200 of those unemployed are long-term, meaning they have been out of work for more than 27 weeks. Over the year, the number of long-term unemployed decreased by about 16 percent.
According to UGA’s Terry College of Business state outlook, Georgia’s unemployment rate should average around 8 percent in 2014. The report also predicted employment would grow by 1.8 percent over the next year, meaning Georgia could replace the jobs it lost during the recession by mid-2015.
Georgia has so far recovered about 65 percent of its lost jobs, but is still down 118,000, according to Terry College.
Metro Savannah’s unemployment rate for December will be released next week.